Monthly Archives: September 2009

by Alph H. Secakuku, Sipaulovi Council Representative, Village of Sipaulovi, Second Mesa, AZ, HopilandSeptember 30, 2009:

The Hopi/Tewa people have always considered themselves to be the best environmentalists in the world.

We made a sacred covenant with Maasaw, our Supreme Being, to be good stewards of the Fourth World we live in today.

We, as people, all have the responsibility of being Caretakers of Mother Earth. You care for it and take from it only what you need, and it will provide for you.

I never thought I would see the day when being “Hopi” meant being anti-environment, pro-big corporate energy, and actually promoting pollution and global warming in favor of dollars/money.

This is the new world image of Hopi, thanks to Scott Canty, Nada Talayumptewa, Phillip Quotshytewa, Mary Felter, Ivan Sidney, Sr., and the rest of the illegally constituted Hopi Tribal Council…in essence, a coup.

It is a sad day for Hopi/Tewa people, and I am disappointed.

We, the Hopi/Tewa people, have worked closely for many years with our allies from the environmental community to protect sacred lands from development and to stop uranium mining from poisoning our water. Water is life, therefore, it is sacred.

We will continue to work together—tribal communities and other clean energy jobs advocates—to bring green economic development to our lands that respects our air and water.

Together with our partners in the environmental community, we are working to secure long term solution to energy, health and water issues in northern Arizona by cleaning up dirty coal plants and promoting solar and wind projects on the reservations. The time to transition from dirty old coal plants to clean energy from the wind and the sun is now.

We see a positive future ahead with results like the Navajo Nation’s recent unanimous green jobs resolution and will continue to support clean energy projects with Navajo and Hopi communities.

We all know that climate change is predicted to bring hotter and drier conditions to the Colorado Plateau, an area which may see even greater temperature increases than the rest of the country. This threatens our water supplies and livelihoods.

From Socialist Voice, a newsletter and content service that provides news and analysis of today’s struggles of the workers and oppressed, from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism, based in Canada but is international in scope.

By Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro’s reflections on current political developments are available at Reflexiones del compañero Fidel1. This article was published on September 24. The translation is by Socialist Voice.

Last July 16, I said that the coup d’état in Honduras “was conceived and organized by unscrupulous characters on the far-right – officials who had been in the confidence of George W. Bush and were promoted by him.”

I mentioned the names of Hugo Llorens, Robert Blau, Stephen McFarland and Robert Callahan, Yankee ambassadors to Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua appointed by Bush in July and August 2008. The four pursued the line of John Negroponte and Otto Reich, two characters with murky histories.

I then indicated that the Yankee base at Soto Cano [Honduras] had provided the main backup to the coup and that “the idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country [Oscar Arias] from the State Department when Obama was in Moscow and was declaring at a Russian university that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya.” I added,

“With the Costa Rica meeting, the authority of the UN, the OAS and the other institutions that committed their support to the people of Honduras is being questioned. The only correct action at this moment is to demand that the government of the United States cease its intervention, stop giving military aid to the coup and pull out its Task Force from Honduras.”

The U.S. response to the coup d’état in that Central American country has been to strike an agreement with the government of Colombia in order to set up seven military bases similar to that of Soto Cano in that sister nation, thus menacing Venezuela, Brazil and all other peoples in South America.

At a critical moment, when the tragedy of the climate change and the international economic crisis are under discussion at a UN summit conference of heads of states, the putschists in Honduras are threatening the immunity of the Brazilian Embassy where President Zelaya, his family and a group of followers were forced to seek sanctuary.

The fact is that the government of Brazil had absolutely nothing to do with the situation created there.

Consequently, it is inadmissible – actually inconceivable – that the Brazilian Embassy would be assaulted by the fascist government, unless it intends to commit suicide, dragging the country to a direct intervention of foreign forces – as was the case in Haiti – which would mean the intervention of Yankee troops under the UN flag. Honduras is not a remote isolated country in the Caribbean. An intervention in Honduras with foreign forces would unleash a conflict in Central America and bring political chaos to the entire Latin American region.

The heroic struggle of the Honduran people during almost 90 days of ceaseless battle has placed the fascist pro-Yankee government, which is crushing unarmed men and women, in a critical situation.

We have seen the emergence of a new consciousness among the Honduran people. A host of social fighters have gained experience in that battle. Zelaya delivered on his promise to return. He is entitled to his position in the government and to preside over the elections. New and admirable cadres have emerged in the combative social movements. They are capable of leading that people through the hazardous journey that awaits the peoples of Our America. A revolution is in the making there.

The current session of the United Nations General Assembly can be a historic one depending on its achievements or wrongs.

The world leaders have expounded on very interesting and complex subjects, which reflect the enormity of the tasks facing humanity and the little time available.

From Socialist Voice, a newsletter and content service that provides news and analysis of today’s struggles of the workers and oppressed, from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism, based in Canada but is international in scope.

By Art Young. The movement to call Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people is growing. It could eventually threaten the existence of the Zionist state by undermining support from its strongest backer, the US government.

That is the message from Howard Kohr, American Israel Public Affairs Committee executive director. AIPAC is one of the principal organisations lobbying publicly on behalf of Israel in the United States, where it is an important influence on foreign policy. In May Kohr told AIPAC’s policy conference that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement was “invading the mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting drumbeat against Israel.”

Kohr pointed to a series of recent actions and statements in a number of countries protesting Israel’s onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, including demonstrations in Spain and Germany. ‘Incredibly’, he added, ‘there now is even an Israel Apartheid Week conducted in cities across the globe.’ Most troubling for him was the progress of the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States, “where Israel stands accused of apartheid and genocide, where Zionism equals racism, where a former president of the United States can publicly accuse Israel of apartheid.”

To win support for Israel from the rulers in the US, Kohr argued, friends of Israel must address the fact that Israel is a Western outpost in the Middle East, the only democratic country in the region that looked West, and with Western values and vision. If that foundation of shared values was shaken, the rationale for the policies pursued today would be stripped away.

Kohr stressed that “the reasons the United States would continue to invest nearly US$3 billion [annually] in Israel’s security, the willingness to stand with Israel, even alone if need be [and its] readiness to defend Israel’s very existence” would all be “undermined and undone if Israel was seen to be unjust and unworthy.”

The argument that Israel is a garrison state – the front line of the defence of imperialist interests in the region – is not often stated in such forthright terms. But it is quite accurate, and speaks to the source of the conflict in the region.